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31 May 2010

May was an extremely busy month - as Micah wrapped up school, and then focused his attention on preparing for Chaplain basic training (CH-BOLC), his brother's upcoming wedding, and family coming to visit!Lauren has been working hard, taking care of a full classroom of infants!We tried a new pizza place - "Art of Pizza." I think this is our new favorite pizza joint (see the slideshow below for pictures).A studio opened up at the Franson-Risberg Memorial Mission Home and we jumped at the opportunity to sign a lease with them! The price is HALF the cost of where we are now - and praise God because it came at a good time. Micah will be at Basic training this summer, and money has always been a little tight, so Lord-willing this will alleviate some of that stress. The studio is smaller, but definitely worth it - and it's in a wonderful building full of amazing people (and many Moody students)! Even though our lease in Wrigleyville is up at the end of July, we will save a lot of money in the long run. We moved at the end of the month (see the pictures in the slideshow as well).This month (May), we had to say goodbye to our dear friends Kelly and Nicolas. We met them at a DIFFERENT church when we were "church-shopping" back in August. We didn't think of exchanging information, but ended up meeting them AGAIN at the church we are now members at (First Free of Chicago)! It was certainly a "God-thing" and we were blessed for the time that we were able to hang out. They are moving back to Canada where Kelly will finish her schooling, and they will both be continuing their work with YWAM. We spent our last evening with them downtown - we ate at an incredible "Mongolian-BBQ-type" restaurant (Flattop), and then went for a walk to the beach.Micah had drill this month - his second drill so far. He took a 6 hour bus ride to Ft. McCoy where his unit spent the weekend for weapons qualifications. He had a good time and was able to spend some quality time with many of the soldiers.Ariel and Scott (Micah's sister and father) came down to visit us during the last weekend (Scott) and week (Ariel) of May! Micah was able to spend more time with them as Lauren had to work during the day still.We were able to: go swing dancing at First Free, eat at many of the popular joints, visit Moody, the Chicago History Museum, go to the beach, go up the Sear's Tower, visit the contemporary art museum, walk to the zoo, walk to Navy Pier (with Micah's work friends), and chill out! We also hosted a SWEET Lost finale party at our old studio in Wrigleyville! Lauren baked up a storm and we had some sweet snacks! Micah also made homemade peanut butter bars (making the peanut butter from scratch)! Many of our friends came over to enjoy the finale and cringe as we discovered that the writers never actually knew what they were doing with the plot....lol!We were also able to go back to Margie's Candies - this time with Ariel - and introduced her to the old-school ice-cream place! That was GOOOOOD!After Ariel went back home, Lauren sister Danielle came to visit with her friend Ashley! We chilled with them as well, and hung out around town! We went to the big Memorial Day parade downtown, and visited some random places. Micah got a $5 haircut, and we even visited the USO at Navy Pier after the Memorial Parade! That was a sweet place!After Dani and Ashley left, Micah's PARENTS (Dee and Scott) came down to Chicago to help us move into our new place! We are so blessed to have such a wonderful set of families to support us, visit us, and encourage us along life's journey!We went to some fun places to eat, like "Orange" for breakfast (Micah had the "Oceanic Flight 815" Special)!After a few trips with the Suburban, we were finally moved in to our new place and Micah went to work - trying to unpack everything before he had to ship off to Basic Training in June! Check out our slideshow below for a more visual summary of our busy month in May! Thanks again to EVERYONE (Micah's friends from Israel, his friends from Andover, our grandparents, parents, family members, friends) who has sent us letters, called us, emailed us, and even came down to visit us this month! We love you all so very much!Love,M&L

05 May 2010

Here is a slideshow of all of the events mentioned prior to the last slideshow - basically everything in April! From Tyrome preaching, to geocaching with work friends, to visiting our 106 year old friend Evelyn, to the Owl City concert! Some of the slides say "video" - if you click on the photo it should bring you to that video so you can play it.Blessings!M&L

Watch this video of our cat Penny!

Video of Evelyn G. talking about first meeting her husband back in the day:

02 May 2010

On Friday we had an awesome time seeing Owl City in concert. The concert was held at the Aragon Ballroom which looks like a giant Spanish courtyard with stars on the ceiling - beautiful! The concert was so much fun - lots of cool light effects, dancing and great music.On Saturday we went to Tammy & Mark's house since Lauren's grandparents from Georgia were there. It was so nice to visit Lauren's grandparents who we hadn't seen since our wedding. We enjoyed lots of delicious home-cooking and great company. We miss you guys already!Micah is in his last week of school this week. He is doing great at finishing up papers for his classes, but is struggling with the amount of Greek he has to study for - it's a lot! Please pray that he would be diligent in his work, that his studying would be fruitful and that he'd learn everything he needs to for Greek.